Deathsmiles I·II Steam Port Input Lag with External Keyboard

[filosophiae]

I am encountering unusual input lag playing steam version Deathsmiles I·II with external keyboard plugged in my laptop, with sometimes new inputs are not responsive, and sometimes previous inputs are prolonged to seconds. More than three movement keys pressed down will result in no movement, unlike normally the move direction is decided by the last two key pressed. This only occurs in Deathsmiles in the I·II package, and in the first release of Steam port or Deathsmiles II no visible lag is observed. All other Cave games (and all other types of games that you can think of) are running well with my external keyboard, including those from Steam ports, Mame or Xenia, and the input lag is not present if I play Deathsmiles with the default laptop keyboard. Anyone with the same issue, and any idea how to solve this?

[Lander]

More than three movement keys pressed down will result in no movement, unlike normally the move direction is decided by the last two key pressed.

What make / model is your external keyboard, and how is it connected to the laptop? Because this sounds like you're using one that doesn't have 'N-key rollover' - the feature that allows an arbitrary number of keys to be active at once.

You can test that with sites like this one; click in the input box, then press and hold ASDFHJKL or such - the amount of keys that turn grey before release is your board's limit, unless it has some special manufacturer driver you can install to open up more functionality.

Though the fact that it only happens in Deathsmiles is odd - could be that it's a bad PC port that uses a restricted API for key input or something, though its PC Gaming Wiki entry doesn't mention anything.

If it's a game API issue, you could try using an input remapper to map keyboard keys to gamepad inputs. I don't think Steam input goes that way, but third-party ones like Universal Control Remapper should be able to handle it.

[filosophiae]

More than three movement keys pressed down will result in no movement, unlike normally the move direction is decided by the last two key pressed.

What make / model is your external keyboard, and how is it connected to the laptop? Because this sounds like you're using one that doesn't have 'N-key rollover' - the feature that allows an arbitrary number of keys to be active at once.

You can test that with sites like this one; click in the input box, then press and hold ASDFHJKL or such - the amount of keys that turn grey before release is your board's limit, unless it has some special manufacturer driver you can install to open up more functionality.

Though the fact that it only happens in Deathsmiles is odd - could be that it's a bad PC port that uses a restricted API for key input or something, though its PC Gaming Wiki entry doesn't mention anything.

If it's a game API issue, you could try using an input remapper to map keyboard keys to gamepad inputs. I don't think Steam input goes that way, but third-party ones like Universal Control Remapper should be able to handle it.

The keyboard is connect to USB 3.0 port. I ran the test you provided, and there's no rollover issue in my keyboard, I can press up to five and more keys without conflicting. It is very likely the bad PC port is causing the issue.

And here I got a good news, the issue is fixed after I tried tons of keyboard to controller binding tools, and it is Myinput that finally solves it! I was only considering keyboard to keyboard binding and it didn't help. Thanks for the hint

[Lander]

Yeah, that certainly sounds like the port! Glad to hear you got it sorted